As I've said a few times previously here, I'm buying an Atrix 4G. I will be patiently waiting outside the Santa Monica AT&T store on that fateful February morning, Peet's coffee in hand, alternatively staring blankly into the store's glass and fiddling with my Nexus One. I'll probably be one of a few people there, but that's ok - I'm not a big fan of crowds.

If you like buying your smartphones at Costco, have I got news for you. Sounds like the king of giant ketchup dispensers will be offering the Atrix 4G as part of its relationship with AT&T, and for the same $150 on-contract figure Amazon quoted (and then quickly unquoted) yesterday.

Lifetime supply of toilet paper not included

I know I'll be getting an Atrix 4G come launch day, but I think I'll take a pass on Costco as a vendor.

The title says it all, people: those enterprising individuals over at XDA-Developers (where else?) have conjured up a permanent root for the EVO Shift. As this is the first method available, the process isn't quite so easy as it's become for other devices. Still, it's not too outrageously complicated, either.

Step 2make sure you have adb properly setup on your computer before continuing temp root using either visionary or z4root open up command prompt and cd to your sdk platform-tools directory then type adb shell then su if you havent already u must press allow on your device to enable su perms

Step 3check the md5sum of both of the files to make sure they match

Code:

md5sum /sdcard/Shift/hboot_orig.bin

Code:

md5sum /sdcard/Shift/hboot_eng.nb0

386c19451e8dd18f9b98fad6b11be4c0 hboot_orig.bin

60ec1006e6ec2e8acb370d6aad35b17e hboot_eng.nb0

if these do not match do not continue redownload the files then check the md5's again

Been wondering when we'd hear more about T-Mobile's newest Sidekick? If so, today's your lucky day: TmoNews has some new info on the device, and a few blurrycam shots to boot. Perhaps the two most important facts: it will be manufactured by Samsung, and is apparently running Android 2.2.1.

You'll never guess where these images are from.

That's not exactly great news, especially for those who had high hopes for the device.

Thanks to a leaked slide, some rumored release dates for upcoming T-Mobile 4G devices have been cemented. First up is Dell's Streak 7, which is set to debut on February 2; that will be followed by the Galaxy S 4G on February 23, while the Honeycomb-sporting G-Slate won't be launching until March 23.

Also leaked were two promos for the Streak 7 that nail down an on-contract (presumably) price of $299 - a pretty good deal for two cores and 7 inches of screen real-estate.

Well, we knew it was coming. Did you honestly think Big Red would bundle your 3G and 4G into one big, happy family? Neither did we. An anonymous Engadget tipster snapped a picture of Verizon's latest data plans - probably set to be released in time for the iPhone 4. Check it out:

Droid-Life posted a helpful companion image of the old pricing for comparison's sake:

Notice the 150MB smartphone plan has vanished, along with an increased base data cap for feature phones.

Despite the massive hype in the Android community surrounding Motorola's super-charged Atrix 4G, there has been little word on the device's pricing or release date. Fortunately, an internal Best Buy meeting has confirmed some important information. There are some conflicting reports on the phone's release: some say it will be arriving at stores on February 13, while others claim that it will be released on that day. Either way, the device will launch at Best Buy stores before any others, though it's unknown how long that exclusivity will last.

This morning, I noticed an interesting thread in the EVO subsection of the XDA forums that claimed to be able to fix music streaming (which was broken in some apps after the latest OTA), while boosting 3G speeds by .2 to .6 Mbps. As the process is very simple and easily reversible, I gave it a go - but decided that I was going to use SpeedTest to benchmark the changes.

So it's true: Samsung and T-Mobile have indeed built an HSPA+ version of the Galaxy S, although it didn't cause the Android 2.2 update for their current offering, the Vibrant, to be held back (contrary to what some had assumed).

Unfortunately, we don't know much about the phone yet - in fact, all we've been told so far is that:

Although Sprint's data plans are significantly cheaper than their competition, there was still some outcry when Sprint decided to charge a $10 monthly add-on charge to phones with 4G connectivity, even if your area isn't actually covered by their WiMax network. Now, however, all smartphones activated after January 30 will be subject to the same charge.

Sprint's reasoning - that “building, maintaining and expanding wireless data networks isn’t free" - is sound, and you can't argue that they still beat every other carrier when it comes to the price of their data plans.